6 Horrifying Things That Happen Before You Leave the Womb

As soon as your parents finish furiously humping you into existence, you embark on a magical journey that in nine months will take you from embryo to baby to unwilling Facebook spam. That's the PG version anyway, but what most after school specials tend to overlook is that along the way a developing human will go through so many creepy physical changes, you'd swear childbirth was something David Cronenberg invented while high on paint thinner.

WARNING: This article has some disturbing images that will ruin your life forever.

#6. You Start Out as a Disembodied Asshole

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Have you ever wondered which body part first emerges from a fertilized egg? That's a really heavy question with some serious philosophical implications. Is it the brain? The heart? Oh man, wouldn't it be hilarious if it were the penis? Wouldn't it be an existential nightmare if it were a solitary anus seemingly stapled to a cluster of cells? Yeah, funny thing about that ...

vasabii/Photos.comNo! Turn back! We'll say the brain and heart are first. And then courage.

Human beings belong to a group in the animal kingdom called deuterostomes, which also includes sea cucumbers, urchins, vertebrates, and everything else that literally comes to life anus first. In humans, after the sperm breaks through the egg's outer membrane like a blind, drunk bull, the embryo splits into many different cells, eventually becoming a blastula. The blastula cells rip open from the inside out, forming an opening called the blastopore, which as you may have guessed will one day develop into a glorious butthole (although why we stop calling it the far more awesome sounding "blastopore" is anybody's guess). But in the beginning, you are just an embryonic, unconnected anus floating around in your mom's uterus, which is both the literal truth and a pretty sick burn, if you care to use it.

The blastopore anus eventually widens like some primitive goatse before tunneling through the blastula until it reaches the other side, where finally the mouth is formed. So essentially, Nature makes humans by constructing two opposing holes and then kind of filling in the blanks. "Deuterostome" is actually a Greek term that means "mouth second," because it's the second part of the body that humans develop, and naming the process any differently would have ended up with us calling ourselves "ass first."

#5. Your Eyes Develop Before Your Eyelids

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Sleep is such a primal part of our nature. In light of that, you have to wonder why the hell human babies aren't born completely crazed out of their minds, considering that, between the third and fifth months of development, they have to live with functioning eyes, but no eyelids.

Your eyes start developing around Week 8, and they're almost completely developed by Week 12. However, your eyelids don't even begin to form until the fifth month. What you have instead until then is a thin, transparent membrane covering your peepers, almost as if Mother Nature wanted to make you watch as your own flesh twists and transforms in a body-horror display straight out of a John Carpenter film.

#4. Your Intestines Grow Outside of Your Body

Anyone who's ever had a hernia or mistaken Taco Bell for food can tell you that when your intestines try to escape your body, it's pretty unpleasant. Which is probably why we've blocked out the memory of that very thing happening to us when we were just 2 months old.

Right around Week 6, a growing human will start to form its intestinal tracts inside the umbilical cord, the gut-tether connecting you to the placenta. That's because an infant's gastrointestinal tract is divided into three main sections: the foregut, which contains everything from your mouth to your stomach; the midgut, which goes from your intestines to the pancreas; and the hindgut, which is everything else right up to your poop chute. Unfortunately, that's a lot of guts to fit into one tiny human body, which at 2 months old decides to save some space by herniating your midgut out through your bellybutton and into a floppy pink sock. Your gut will continue to bore deeper into the umbilical cord and develop there, completely outside of your body, so that you can watch it all with your lidless eyes and scream with your asshole-mouth.

masaltof/Photos.comWe could give you a closer look at this. Instead, here's a tasteful assortment of butcher's meats.